spleen. I do not
blame an _honest_ gentleman for the bitterest invectives against one to
whom he professeth the greatest friendship; provided he acts in the
dark, so as not to be discovered. But in the midst of caresses, visits,
and invitations, to run into the streets, or to as public a place, and
without the least pretended excitement, sputter out the basest and
falsest accusations; then to wipe his mouth, come up smiling to his
friend, shake him by the hand, and tell him in a whisper, it was "all
for his service;" this proceeding, I am bold to think a great failure in
prudence; and I am afraid lest such a practitioner, with a body so open,
so foul, and so full of sores, may fall under the resentment of an
incensed political surgeon, who is not in much renown for his mercy upon
great provocation: who without waiting for his death, will flay, and
dissect him alive, and to the view of mankind lay open all the
disordered cells of his brain, the venom of his tongue, the corruption
of his heart, and spots and flatuses of his spleen--And all this for
threepence.[154]

In such a case what a scene would be laid open! and to drop my metaphor
what a character of our mistaking friend might an angry enemy draw and
expose! particularizing that unnatural conjunction of vices and follies,
so inconsistent with each other in the same breast: Furious and fawning,
scurrilous and flattering, cowardly and provoking, insolent and abject;
most profligately false, with the strongest professions of sincerity,
positive and variable, tyrannical and slavish.

I apprehend that if all this should be set out to the world by an angry
Whig of the old stamp, the unavoidable consequence must be a confinement
of our friend for some months more to his garret, and thereby depriving
the public for so long a time, and in so important a juncture, of his
useful talents in their service, while he is fed like a wild beast
through a hole; but I hope with a special regard to the quantity and
quality of his nourishment.

In vain would his excusers endeavour to palliate his enormities, by
imputing them to madness:[155] Because, it is well known, that madness
only operates by inflaming and enlarging the good or evil dispositions
of the mind: For the curators of Bedlam assure us, that some lunatics
are persons of honour, truth, benevolence, and many other virtues, which
appear in their highest ravings, although after a wild incoherent
manner; while others on the